I had seen the kickstarter for this and was really looking forward to enjoy this setting, already having plans to combine it with another book in my collection for some awesome Suicide Squard like sessions, but as I slowly flipped trough the pages was it really disapointing to see how the writers dosn't really catch what there makes SW so special, them scrapping all of the ordinary character creation for example, and dosn't really understand how finicky and sensitive a system SW is, examples will follow.

Things that I noticed in order.

The medical corp picture on page 18 is way pixalated and should really have been caught in pre-reading.

A lot of different careres get the option to choose a combat edge, but it does not seem like there are any limitations, so you could choose an improved edge or one that you ain't high enough rank to reach. And the Naval Crew get to choose any one edge which is even more broken.

When we come to "Zombie Squard roles", this books way of putting classes into a classless system does it really show how the creators didn't catch how SW works. A freshly generated charcter that takes the first role in the book "The Booster" do they both get +2 on all fighting and shooting rolls (no conditions for said bonus), +2 to parry as well as the Dodge edge and the Charismatic edge and +2 to all Persuasion rolls, on top of some bonuses to stealth as well. Getting +4 on all Persuasive rolls right out of the bag is really broken, one only being able to fail a standard roll on a critical failure, and you do even have a pair of bennies to redo that if it should happen.

I stopped reading closely here, but "+2" was a really common orcurance, and in SW does that mean that you get a 50% bonus on quite a lot of rolls.

I do think that the writers have a nice idea, but the excecution is terrible.

I want to make it clear that this review is based on an initial, and not overly in-depth reading. I think its still valid but read it in that context.

Zombie Squad is a splendid idea and a decent setting. Unfortunately, I think there may have been a bit too much of the mindset of other systems used for the setting (PbtA and D20 respectively) brought to the Savage Worlds version.

Not only does this mean the game is desperately trying to force Savage Worlds to behave like a class system (which it pretty avowedly isn't), its also set-up so some things turn into traps or intelligence tests that may have been sequestered away in classes or PbtA playbooks in the other version. As an example, in one of the early parts of character generation, you get a choice of one of several possible backgrounds, each of which provides a free bonus. But the bonuses vary pretty wildly in value, from +2 skill bonuses to narrow applications of a skill, +2 bonuses to whole skills, to other abilities comparable to full Edges (or, indeed, getting Edges themselves). Now, SW is hardly lacking in good and bad choices, but a number of these things are a bit more extreme than you'd normally see in a Savage setting, and I think it can be traced back to not really thinking in terms of what SW basically is--a relatively light and slightly (but only slightly) constrained build and advancement system. Bringing a class/playbook mindset to it really just doesn't work well.

Its unfortunate, as the idea of playing the Dirty Dozen in space is a cool one, and one I'm surprised nobody had thought of before. But as it is, I don't think I can say the Savage Worlds version sticks the landing.

Quite good set of weapons, especially sniper weaponry, which is huge lackluster in Starfinder system.
Overall everything is balanced good and fits in current weaponry.
Big pool of special properties makes weapons stand out.
Renders are nice, helps with imagination. Though, I would prefer, personally, drawing side-style like in Starfinder for consistency with system.
Flavor text is great, adds some lore seeds.

As personal lore of Starfinder, I made those weapons like specific series, produced by Arabani Arms Ltd, an Apostae-based drow weapons trafficking enterprise.

If you reduce Sector Asgard Kappa down to it's core, the majority of the book is a description of each system and the key (usually habitable) planets within each system. It doesn't sound like much, but it is done in good detail. Each planet/system includes (cool to boring):

A broadly outlined planetary adventure (Savage Tale)

A map of the planet

Sci-fi rich description of the planet's history and where it is now

Racial stats for the denizens of each planet (players could hail from one of them)

Several key NPCs (enough to get you started)

Science Fiction Companion Stats for the planet

You get a well detailed science fiction sandbox.

"A Million Starflies" is the title for the included Plot Point campaign which spans 15 adventures. Naturally, it is setup to make the players travel and explore the sector which in turns allows them to get involved with included planetary Savage Tales or simple random encounters of your own creation.

The bottom line is that you can run this as a sandbox or use the plot point campaign for a bit more focus. Regardless, there are many, many hours of game play here.

The first outing, though second edition, of this heroic game series provides the 146 page Player’s Guide, which contains everything needed to create characters for the adventures ahead. My hardback is on its way.

If you are familiar with Blue Planet, which I’m not, then the brief introduction to the game mechanics will be like a sensual plunge into those balmy waters of ‘Synergy’, as this game uses that engine. More on that in a moment. Just to be clear, you don’t get much in the way of game in this book. The opening section gives an outline providing some context for the characters to come.

Characters are mostly defined by Attributes, Aptitudes and Skills. You start with a power level that essentially governs how may points you can spend in each of the key areas: Everyday, Exceptional and Elite. The example character is an Elite. Unless you are wanting to level grind, or want to play ordinary people in extraordinary situations, you’re going to pitch for the bouncy elite’s with lots of skill and muscles and dice. The ten Attributes and four further derived ones are strewn across the usual physical, mental and magical categories. That’s a lot of Attributes. These are modified by your race, which suggests the usual core of human, dwarves and various elves and gnobbits. The races give you neat starting packages to tailor you from the genetic get go.

Aptitudes are a key part of the game. These are a series of skill groups rated at one of three levels: Average, Strong or Superior. Aptitude examples include things like Artisan, Close Combat, Stealth and Transport. Each Aptitude area has a host of finer grained skills within. This game is a roll and keep the lowest system. Average gives you a pool of 1d10, Strong 2d10 and Superior 3d10. Skills are quite detailed. In Savage or Fate you might find that the Aptitude categories would be the skill list. Instead, for Worlds of Adventure, you’ve got a more detailed list, at a kind of Runequest level, but not as voluminous as Eclipse Phase. Skills are rated at 1-10.

Just so you know, the game is: add an attribute and a skill together, modify by difficulty to give you a ‘Target Number’ and using your Aptitude dice (1-3 d10) roll and keep the lowest trying to get equal or less than the number. Done. You also have ‘Fate Stones’ to spend to give bonuses and cool shizzle.

Skills are acquired through a really nice lifepath system where you pick up origin, background and professional skill packages to build up a list of skills. Along with racial variation you’ve got complete control to create a story concept and find a path that gives you the skill base to reflect your pre-game experiences. The amount you get depends on the power level you are playing with.

The character profile process is a twenty question list that serves to deepen the understanding of the character, their goals, motivations and attitude. It can probably also be used for when you are next putting a profile on a dating website.

We then have 30 pages of magic and spells. This is a pretty good list of whizzy stuff grouped into domains such as Illusion, Transmutation and Evocation 36 pages of equipment covers in step by step detail the prices and capabilities of Ale and Armour to Swords and Sausages. The ‘Adventuring Essentials’ section provides you with everything that a well healed ravager might need whilst out and about in the wilderness. Any game that affirms that a ten foot pole is 'a surprisingly versatile addition to an adventurer’s kit', knows where its tropes lie.

The character sheet is a functional series of boxes that I might like to have seen more evocative, if not illusory. One for a home redesign.

At the end you get a tantalising page of all the other core books to come. The Moderator Guide (now a few weeks off as at end of Sept 2016) gives you the core rules of the game and how to slaughter each other. Also promised is a bestiary, big book of even more spells, and a ‘companion’ tome of dug up trivia. Now, it seems to me that you really need the Moderators Guide to have a full game. The blurb states that:

This book covers all the information you’ll need as a moderator for Worlds of Adventure; from combat to creating new magic to wilderness survival, moderation tips and a small bestiary.

For now, we have the free Quickstarter (get it on Drivethru), which gives you the core of the game and enough to get started. I’d probably have liked to have had the Players and Moderators Guides together in one book to give you a core game that you can play in one purchase. The others are fine for add ons.

Nicely written, some good illustrations and layout, a sound little system and lots of options to get you started. I like it. The proof is in play of course and I really want to give it a run out with the Moderator Guide in my sweaty palms.

... yes, there are times when only cold steel (or something like it) will do. Consider, for example, the perils of firing projectile weapons in a pressurised environment, like a space ship or orbital habitat, for example.

Complete with beautiful almost photo-realistic illustrations and all apposite game stats, here are five distinct swords that have futuristic capabilities yet are still melee weapons any mediaeval warrior would recognise. Mostly.

There is a bit of a tendency to manga-style ridiculously-wide blades, a style which would make any competent swordsman worry about their balance, otherwise they're quite interesting. So if swords with inbuild personal force-shields (the Impellor Sword) or ones which vibrate sufficiently to deal additional damage (the Hammer Sword) appeal, here's where to find them, along with the rather nasty extending and disintegrating Singularity Sword, a Plasma Blade and a Phase Blade. No ordinary swords, these, they are true weapons of the distant future.

I purchased this expecting some really well drawn templates. The cover art looked pretty good, even though I couldn’t preview a larger copy. However, I was sadly disappointed with this product.

The art is horribly amateurish at best. If you’re going to put out a book of templates and charge for it, the artwork should be of a professional quality. These templates looked like they were made by someone just starting to learn how to draw. It actually looks like something my 13 year old nephew would make.

I actually deleted my pdf after I downloaded it. It didn't cost much so I'll live with it. I think the publishers tried their best, but fell way short of the target. Avoid this product.

This product is billed as a "compilation of character templates that you can use for your character portraits."

Basically, AV has taken a 3D model of a character, and placed it (her in this case) in twelve different poses. Your task is to place hair, clothing and equipment on the template before coloring it in. I'd be curious to know whether people find this kind of product useful. Personally, I don't get it... But I'm open to being shown the error of my ways.

Any takers?

Now, the templates aren't really that bad. I printed out a couple to see them on paper. If you use this product, I'd suggest printing in a light greyscale so that the darker areas don't overpower the open spaces - the noses, in particular, have deep shading which looks... odd when printed out. After printing, I used a pencil to sketch clothing and then inked all the lines using a fine-point art marker (you can use a sharpie, I guess).

Not too bad, but I still don't get the point. And I'm not convinced that 12 poses for a single N/PC is worth $2.80.

Despite the fact that many modern/future games enjoy playing up characters who use futuristic melee weapons, or special powers, guns are still at the heart of future combat. From the naked geekery of detailing the imaginary tech of future weapons to the sheer badass factor that comes with blowing someone away and assuming a pose, guns are what make future heroes (and villains). You’ll never hear someone say that there don’t need to be more types of new guns made, an axion that proves true with Applied Vector’s Future Firearms Pack One.

The first of the Future Firearms line comes as a single PDF inside a zip file less than two megabytes in size. The PDF is fourteen pages long, with the front and back covers getting a page each, a page for the credits and table of contents, and two pages for the OGL. While bookmarks aren’t really necessary in a product of this length, it would have been nice if they’d been given here.

Despite being a short product, and being primarily about new weaponry, this book set a very high bar for itself in terms of its artwork. All of the illustrations are full color CGI, and are very well done. The covers both use the same illustration of a woman aiming a huge gun in the midst of a fire. However, each of the new weapons here not only has a singular illustration of the gun itself, but also an absolutely gorgeous full-page illustration of someone wielding it. It should be obvious that I was very impressed with the artwork here. However, the plethora of lush designs means that people interested in printing this book out may be in for a bit of a hard time. While it’s easy enough to just print the specific pages for each gun, a printer-friendly version would have been a good extra feature.

The book opens by spending a page recapping the statistics for guns. Ordinarily I look down on reprinting rules, but I found it to be helpful here, and thankfully brief. After that it dives right into the four new guns it presents, ranging from PL 6 through PL 8. While each guns has a brief description, most of their write-up is about what gadgets are incorporated into their design. It’s a bit unfortunate that many of them incorporate similar gadgets, making the guns seem similar. While I can follow the logic that says that futuristic guns will all have built-in advantages over modern guns, this works against making each gun feel special – the weapons here do feel unique, but only by overcoming how several gadgets are repeated several times.

Future Firearms Pack One does a good job in presenting several new guns for your Future d20 game, but the best part of this book is the extra care that was spent on the art. The mechanics themselves are adequate, but it’s the pictorial presentation that really makes this book stand out. There’s still substance to this product, but it’s the presentation that’ll be what most likely captivates you.

Future Firearms, Pack 1 by Applied Vectors is weaponry sourcebook for D20 Modern/D20 Future written and illustrated by Ian R. Liddle. This product is 14-pages (10-pages after cover and OGL) with a clear if unremarkable layout. Each of the five weapons is illustrated twice. The first is a grayscale image of just the weapon and one color piece with the weapon “in use” by a character. All of the pieces are computer generated.

The product begins with a standard breakdown of the information on the weapon statistic line, what it means and so on. Then it moves onto the body of the product, the four weapons from PL 6 - 8 technologies. A variety of destructive technologies are included: laser, plasma, pulse and rail gun weapons are represented. The designs are one pistol and three long arms. Each is given a sentence or two of descriptive text and then it is into the game information, much of which is repetitive between the entries and seems that it could have been condensed in some way.

The weapons are specialized and effective, the sort that player characters will probably be interested in. However, they lack description and history. There are no plot hooks presented beyond the images which, while intriguing with an evocative caption, are of limited inspirational value.

This product is easy to read and solid mechanically but it lacks useful background, plot and story hooks that would really make this product a must have for a D20 Future GM.

needs alot more 3d pics of grav vehicles, not just the two this pdf comes with,(one on the frount cover and a black and white sketch on the first page) all the rest were side on pictures of the craft, which all look alike., needs alot more 3d pics of grav vehicles, not just the two this pdf comes with,(one on the frount cover and a black and white sketch on the first page) all the rest were side on pictures of the craft, which all look alike.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: needs alot more 3d pics of grav vehicles, not just the two this pdf comes with,(one on the frount cover and a black and white sketch on the first page) all the rest were side on pictures of the craft, which all look alike.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: needs alot more 3d pics of grav vehicles, not just the two this pdf comes with,(one on the frount cover and a black and white sketch on the first page) all the rest were side on pictures of the craft, which all look alike.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

Thank you for your Comment.
I'm sorry you were disappointed with your purchase, however always being one to listen to my customers, I'll add some additional showcase images of the vehicles and have that up in the next few days.
All existing customers will be provided with the updated version at no further charge.